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dr_oligo's review against another edition
5.0
It's over 20 years since I last read an Umberto Eco book (Foucault's Pendulum was the last one) and I wasn't in a rush to dive back in. However, Baudolino was a delightful book and a terrific character. The story was, as always for Eco, an excellent mix of strong plot plus detailed descriptions of a distant place. I found myself eager to pick up Baudolino and was sad when it was done. The irreverent use of religious artifacts was particularly amusing as a plot mechanism.
mfreader's review against another edition
4.0
Although I wasn't as prepared for the fantasy element of the story and it made me cringe a couple of times... I ended up really liking this story. Baudolino is an excellent story teller (and so is Eco!).
jdintr's review against another edition
4.0
Last summer I visited Speyer, Germany, and the cathedral which holds the graves of the Stauffer family: a dynasty which reached its zenith under the two Fredericks of the medieval Holy Roman Empire, Barbarossa and his grandson, Frederick II, who ruled Sicily and Naples as well as lands stretching from the Po Valley to the Baltic Sea. Beatrice is buried in Speyer. Her husband is not.
It was while learning more about the Stauffers after my visit that I came across a reference to this book, which is a wonderful complement to historical study.
Baudolino captures the crux of the Middle Ages. Framed by the fall of Constantinople during the madness of the Fourth Crusade, it looks back to the life of a fortunate Italian boy, who rescues a king wandering in the Italian swamps, is adopted by him, falls in love with a forbidden empress, and ascends to remarkable heights.
The book is a testament to Eco's remarkable scholarship and artistry. For it is many types of books rolled into one:
To me, this book is a discourse, a scholar flexing his intellectual muscles and taking us deep into a culture and mindset that he has fully mastered. It is a thriller, yes, but not as great as ITNOTR. It is far more than that, and the curious will find it far more satisfying because of its connections to real events and figures from European history.
It was while learning more about the Stauffers after my visit that I came across a reference to this book, which is a wonderful complement to historical study.
Baudolino captures the crux of the Middle Ages. Framed by the fall of Constantinople during the madness of the Fourth Crusade, it looks back to the life of a fortunate Italian boy, who rescues a king wandering in the Italian swamps, is adopted by him, falls in love with a forbidden empress, and ascends to remarkable heights.
The book is a testament to Eco's remarkable scholarship and artistry. For it is many types of books rolled into one:
- It is a discourse on Italian politics of the 12th Century, as the Lombard League sought to remove the yoke of domination from both Papal Rome and the German (Holy Roman) Empire, often by playing both sides against each other. In the sudden appearance of the city of Alessandro, Eco is able to describe how Italian towns were fortified, and how they survived. Also, Baudolino frames the difficult choices that Barbarossa faced in very matter-of-fact terms, and he often uses his position as an adviser to recommend a surfeit through which the king can save face when the odds don't seem to be in his favor.
One surfeit is the exploration of the myth of Prester John--a fabled eastern kingdom, cut off by the Turks, where a Latin Christian rules in splendor. If Frederick cannot get the Pope or Lombard counts to stay on his side, perhaps a mythical union will provide the glamor he needs. After Frederick's untimely drowning, Baudolino and a band of eleven compatriots (trying to pass themselves off as the returning Twelve Wise Men from the Bethlehem story) leave for the east. A tale that becomes medieval fantasy with strange beasts, cotton-candy clouds, and marmalade skies.
Eco includes discourses on medieval science, such as the discussion of the scientific and theological implications of the Vacuum, demonstrated at a castle the band finds in Armenia.
There are insights into poetry, and into the Christianity of the High Middle Ages, where relics are manufactured (the wise men travel with six heads of John the Baptist), and the Holy Grail is first discovered, then lost, then sought for.
Finally, there is a murder mystery, which ties Baudolino together with Eco's other great medieval novel, In the Name of the Rose. This makes up the final fifth of the book--and it's not a plot device that Eco really carries along well. King Frederick is dead. The history books tell us he drowned, but Eco introduces an element of doubt, and the final scene in the crypts of Constantinople return to it and tie the plot together nicely.
To me, this book is a discourse, a scholar flexing his intellectual muscles and taking us deep into a culture and mindset that he has fully mastered. It is a thriller, yes, but not as great as ITNOTR. It is far more than that, and the curious will find it far more satisfying because of its connections to real events and figures from European history.
oldenglishrose's review against another edition
4.0
Baudolino is a difficult book to summarise, because the more you read, the more you realise that the plot is merely incidental and the book is really about something else entirely. In fact, if you were to read this book for the plot you would be very confused very quickly. The story is a first person account by the eponymous Baudolino of his life, as told to Niketas whom he rescues from the sack of Constantinople. It chronicles his adventures from 1155 when he was adopted in all but name by Emperor Frederick I up to the fourth Crusade which is the present day of the novel. In between he falls in love, studies in Paris, negotiates peace agreements, saves cities, and searches for the legendary kingdom of Prester John. However, what the book is really about (I think; it’s a bit difficult to tell with Eco) is what is true and what is not and how easily one can become the other.
Baudolino himself is established as an unreliable narrator from the very beginning of the novel. The book begins with him quite literally erasing history and writing his own story over the top of it when he scrapes clean some parchment containing historical records for his own personal use. He goes on to fabricate love letters which he considers more true than if they had really been sent to him by the object of his affection (who is of course, like Dante’s lady love, called Beatrice). He creates religious relics from household junk. He invents a letter from Prester John to Frederick which sends Baudolino and his friends off on an impossible journey to find the kingdom that they themselves have created, bearing a cup which they style as the grail. These stories not only take in others, but they even fool their creators as Baudolino and his friends seem to come to believe in their own fictions, so the reader stands no chance of working out what is true and what is not. Why should his first person narrative to Niketas be any more factual than any of this? And does it matter if it is true or a lie? Eco seems to be asking whether there is a difference at all, and with the amount of blurring that goes on in this book it is impossible to say.
By far my favourite part of this book was Baudolino’s own manuscript which begins the novel, written in a strange, hybrid language which is a mixture of Latin and how he thinks his native tongue ought to sound if it were to be written (and kudos to William Weaver for finding a way to translate this so that it works in English). This is so very medieval in spirit, right down to his having scraped the parchment clean of another text and written his own story over the top of it (although parts of the original manuscript still show through at points), that I couldn’t help but enjoy it. This was the first in a long series of in jokes for medievalists which I found enormously entertaining but I’m not sure would have been appreciated as much by someone without this background; even with my education in this area, at times I felt as though I needed to read armed with an encyclopedia of the medieval world to pick up on everything and I’m sure I missed a great deal. Eco may be writing fiction, but this book is very scholarly, employing and satirising a whole host of medieval tropes and conventions, from Provencal troubadour verse to debate on religious heresies, from courtly love to fantastic travelogues and from philosophy to the inexplicable lists, ubiquitous in medieval literature. Baudolino is a gold mine of satire on the middle ages, but it is hard work to read.
Baudolino himself is established as an unreliable narrator from the very beginning of the novel. The book begins with him quite literally erasing history and writing his own story over the top of it when he scrapes clean some parchment containing historical records for his own personal use. He goes on to fabricate love letters which he considers more true than if they had really been sent to him by the object of his affection (who is of course, like Dante’s lady love, called Beatrice). He creates religious relics from household junk. He invents a letter from Prester John to Frederick which sends Baudolino and his friends off on an impossible journey to find the kingdom that they themselves have created, bearing a cup which they style as the grail. These stories not only take in others, but they even fool their creators as Baudolino and his friends seem to come to believe in their own fictions, so the reader stands no chance of working out what is true and what is not. Why should his first person narrative to Niketas be any more factual than any of this? And does it matter if it is true or a lie? Eco seems to be asking whether there is a difference at all, and with the amount of blurring that goes on in this book it is impossible to say.
By far my favourite part of this book was Baudolino’s own manuscript which begins the novel, written in a strange, hybrid language which is a mixture of Latin and how he thinks his native tongue ought to sound if it were to be written (and kudos to William Weaver for finding a way to translate this so that it works in English). This is so very medieval in spirit, right down to his having scraped the parchment clean of another text and written his own story over the top of it (although parts of the original manuscript still show through at points), that I couldn’t help but enjoy it. This was the first in a long series of in jokes for medievalists which I found enormously entertaining but I’m not sure would have been appreciated as much by someone without this background; even with my education in this area, at times I felt as though I needed to read armed with an encyclopedia of the medieval world to pick up on everything and I’m sure I missed a great deal. Eco may be writing fiction, but this book is very scholarly, employing and satirising a whole host of medieval tropes and conventions, from Provencal troubadour verse to debate on religious heresies, from courtly love to fantastic travelogues and from philosophy to the inexplicable lists, ubiquitous in medieval literature. Baudolino is a gold mine of satire on the middle ages, but it is hard work to read.
klazu's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
gvorb's review against another edition
5.0
I've never read anything quite like this book before. It's a beautifully written 1,001 Nights-style medieval adventure that has just about everything--action, romance, humor, mystery, philosophy.. You name it. Would highly recommend.
meganstreb's review against another edition
2.0
NOT a massive fan of this. I've liked other works by Eco, but this just wasn't one of them. Too all over the place, not at all realistic, and I didn't feel for any of the characters. Although I loved the description of fantastical characters (like a lion!) in The Name of the Rose, I couldn't stand how the plausible and the fantastical were fused/jumbled/thrown together in this book. A big long, but maybe that's just because I got bored.
ianhafer's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
“It’s not a lie if you believe it.”—George Costanza
There’s a passage in Baudolino that’s among the most beautiful things I’ve ever read that represents a perfect nexus of character, theme, and emotional and spiritual truth.
There’s a passage in Baudolino that’s among the most beautiful things I’ve ever read that represents a perfect nexus of character, theme, and emotional and spiritual truth.
jdlomax's review against another edition
2.0
Loved Name of The Rose. Hated this book. The second half of this book was a lazy slog. Make a list of fantastic creatures invented by medieval monks and write conjured scenes with your boring band of merry men. Not funny, not clever, just pretentious and silly.
michael5000's review against another edition
4.0
A Byzantine (in more ways than one) meditation on the nature of truth, road trip, and murder mystery. Very witty and very steeped in the history of the Middle Ages. Flags a bit in the back stretch, where endless wanderings start to feel like, well, endless wanderings. Worth sticking it out for the end, though.